Lycan Tides by Renee Wildes

Lycan Tides
Guardians of Light, Book 3
by Renee Wildes

Samhain Publishing

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60504-710-2
Print ISBN: 978-1-60504-623-5

Trystan is a werewolf on a mission – find and return dragons to his homeland. Following a lead across the sea, wounded by attacking pirates, ship foundered and sinking fast, selkie princess Finora rescues him. Selkie and werewolf. Both creatures ruled by the moon. The attraction is instant, mutual, undeniable…impossible.

Note: Prologue omitted.

Chapter One

Four Years Later

He was Trystan, mightiest of the clans’ guardians, scourge of demon and hellhound alike. Well he recalled marching into battle to the sound of pipes and drums, the cries of the enemy and the smell of their sweat, their fear. The predator in him gloried in the taste of their blood…

“The mighty Trystan, who canna pull his wee head outta yon bucket for two breaths in a row,” his mentor Niadh thought-sent.

The vessel plunged through yet another wave, and the retching began anew. Trystan groaned. His sides ached from hours of heaving over said bucket, although his stomach had long since emptied. The air in the tiny cabin was stifling and foul, but Trystan was too weak to stand up and open the porthole, and Niadh in his current lupine form had no hands to do so, either.

A knock heralded Giles, the Lighthaven sailor who’d booked this passage from hell. “Came t’ see if ye were still breathin’.”

“Wish I werena,” Trystan rasped. Lord of the mountains, lord of the night, son of the moon…brought down by mere water. ’Twas beyond humiliating.

Giles grimaced. “I’m sure. Pgah, it reeks in here!” He strode in to open the porthole. Fresh salt air swept into the cabin. He handed Trystan a cup of brackish water. “Rinse yer mouth an’ I’ll get rid o’ this bucket.” He was as good as his word, removing the foul-smelling bucket as Trystan collapsed onto his berth.

“’Twas yer idea t’ come, remember?” Niadh asked.

Unfortunately, Trystan recalled the beginning moment of his own folly all too well. Standing in Queen Dara’s cave, staring at the pictographs on the wall of the last dragon guardians flying off into the setting sun. Vowing to follow them westward, to find them and demand to know why they’d abandoned his people. He’d marched out of the mountains with Niadh and Ealga, the great mountain eagle, across the snow-covered plains of Arcadia to Land’s End. There, a vast expanse of salt water blocked his path. A conversation with Giles in a smoky pub had landed him passage on the Sunrisen, a merchant vessel setting out on the first trip of spring, her hold filled with timber, coal and hides.

And so, here he was. “Sun and moon, what was I thinkin’?”

Niadh nudged Trystan’s hand with his cold wet nose. “Ye were thinkin’ o’ our people. Ye were thinkin’ like a guardian. None can fault ye for that.”

Trystan stared into his wolf-kin mentor’s silver eyes. “I’m sorra for draggin’ ye with me. I’m sorra the council punished ye with that form an’ tied ye t’ me.”

“Ye werena meant for Wolf Clan, but Badger.” If a wolf could shrug, Niadh did so. “’Twas me own error, t’ bite ye durin’ the full o’ the moon. ’Tis me own fault Badger Clan is now short a warrior. Teachin’ ye The Way an’ guardin’ yer back be a small price t’ pay.”

“But ye canna shift. Ye canna heal if ye canna shift.”

“I can heal. Slow, like any other creature.” Niadh closed his teeth around Trystan’s hand. “Go t’ sleep, laddie.”

Trystan closed his eyes, drifted off to the rock of the ship, the sound of birds and waves.

A pounding on the door woke him again. Giles burst in. “If ye’re not dead, on yer feet. We need all hands on deck.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Trystan struggled into his boots.

“Black sails spotted on the horizon.” Giles’ face was grim. “Corsair vessel. They prowl these waters betwixt Land’s End an’ Lighthaven in search o’ prey like us. They’re small an’ swift whilst we lumber ’long like a pregnant woman in her last month. We can’t run for long. They’ll stalk us through the night an’ be on us by dawn. We can but fight.”

Trystan grabbed his boar spear, battle axes and knives. “If’n we lose?”

“They’ll keep the ship. They want the cargo. They’ll spare Doc an’ the cook. The rest o’ us are but fodder for the deep. Fight well, an’ they might sell ye t’ those that traffic in gladiators, but ye’ll be chained t’ the oars ’til the day they dock.”

“I wasna born t’ be ’nother mon’s slave,” Trystan growled.

Niadh bared his fangs, black fur standing on end.

“Ye’ve ne’er fought on a pitchin’ deck, have ye?”

Trystan shook his head.

“Once the blood starts runnin’, deck gets slipp’ry. Ye’ll want t’ widen yer stance, keep yer knees bent. Shift yer weight ’gainst the pitch.”

“No’ unlike the rope bridges in trainin’,” Niadh reminded him.

Trystan recalled how many times those accursed bridges had dumped him on his arse in freezing cold mountain stream water. Not a comparison he’d have favored, no matter how accurate. He clenched his jaw. He’d not come all this way to be stopped by a bunch of thieving pirates. His journey was to Lighthaven and he’d not be stopped afore then, bad food and seasickness notwithstanding.

They went out into the alleyway. Trystan’s eyes locked on the white face of little Toby, the cabin boy. Those big green eyes were wide with fright, and Toby gripped a cook’s knife in his thin hand. Trystan frowned, shaking his grizzled grey head at the concept of an armed eight-year-old, more dangerous to himself than anyone else. “Stay with him,” he ordered Niadh. “With yer claws ye’re safer belowdecks. If’n they make it this far, he’ll be needin’ ye.”

“I’ve no burnin’ desire t’ feed the fishes,” Niadh agreed.

To guard the weak and helpless was what they’d been created for. Trystan knew Niadh would guard Toby with his last dying gasp. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Surely the merchantmen were prepared to repel boarders. He followed Giles up the companionway stairs, out into a hornet’s nest of activity. Ealga plummeted down from the mast to land on his shoulder, dug her talons into the quilted leather jerkin and flapped her wings to keep her balance. Her weight threw his own balance off, but he widened his stance to compensate for the pitching deck.

Captain Reed strode over to them. Trystan marveled at how such a great bull of a man rode the deck as lightly as Giles. “But a matter o’ time afore they close in. If we can get close enough t’ Lighthaven, they’ll veer off. They hunt their prey in open waters. They’ve no desire t’ risk the wrath o’ the wizard.”

Wizard? What wizard? Trystan frowned at Giles. “Sommat slip yer mind?”

Giles flushed. “Ye don’t know if he’s a wizard or not. They moved into the Widow Sera’s manor. Him an’ his daughter. They don’ mix with our folk. ’Tis naught but rumors.”

“Back t’ lookout,” Reed ordered.

“Aye, Cap’n.” Giles nodded and scrambled up the knotted line, which hung down the mast from the crows’ nest, to follow those ominous black sails.

Trystan’s stomach lurched just watching Giles sway in the wind, and he lowered his gaze to meet Reed’s. “What d’ye wish me t’ do, ’til there’s need t’ fight?”

Reed smirked. “Ye’re no sailor, lad.”

Trystan bristled. “Mayhaps no’, but I’m no’ useless, either. I’ll earn me passage. Now give me sommat t’ do where I willna be in anyone’s way an’ there’ll be an end t’ it.” He closed his eyes and reached for Ealga’s mind, pictured a ship with black sails. “Find it. Watch it.”

She launched herself into the air, fierce and focused.

“Where’s yer wolf?”

“Guardin’ Toby below. Dangerous on deck. No way t’ catch himself should the ship list.”

Reed nodded. “Ye could fetch buckets o’ sand an’ line them up along the sides. When ye’re done, see if ye can help Doc.”

Trystan nodded, laying his spear behind a massive coil of line as thick as his wrist. He grabbed a bucket from one of the men and went below to the hold, where the sand was stored. He passed Niadh and Toby on the way. “What’s the sand for, laddie?”

“T’ soak up the blood, save footin’ an’ put out the fires,” Toby replied.

Two by two, Trystan hauled buckets of sand and secured the handles over bronze hooks along the sides. The watches changed just after sunset. Those on deck went below for a quick meal. Trystan passed on Giles’ offer of food. Ealga sent Trystan a steady stream of images of dirty lash-striped men with matted hair. Rowing hard with the wind, they closed on their larger prey. Her two side rudders and the foremost artemon sail on the bow steered her to take best advantage of the wind, and her mainsail strained to its limit, but the Sunrisen was no match for the smaller, lighter and swifter galley. The pirates took the advantage of oar as well as sail. Even with her holds full of cargo, the Sunrisen rode too high in the water for oars to have any effect.

The sun set with that ever-present ghost stalking just within sight. As the darkness swelled, Reed ordered all lights put out. Trystan recalled Ealga. The eagle was a creature of daylight and the darkness hampered her vision. Reed came up as Ealga settled herself on the sternpost. “Get some rest, lad. We change shift in four bells.”

“I hate waitin’ the worst,” Giles confessed as they dropped onto the floor of Trystan’s cabin. Toby was fast asleep, his cheek resting in Niadh’s rough black fur.

“Sleep whilst ye can,” Trystan advised, closed his eyes and let his mind float free. He sought the moonpaths, followed them across the churning waters to the other ship. Niadh strode the beams with him in man-form, bearing the familiar black hair and beard and silver eyes, through the mists of the dream-state that allowed a guardian’s body to rest whilst his mind worked through a problem. “Blood an’ fire,” Trystan thought. “T’ take a ship, ye must stop her. How t’ stop a ship without sinkin’ her?”

“Rudder an’ sail,” Niadh replied. “Slash a sail, crack a rudder.”

Trystan frowned at bows and arrows on the pirate vessel, grappling hooks on coiled lines, knotted nets with more grappling hooks along one edge. Bridges, he realized, to connect two bobbing ships and allow men to cross betwixt. Once aboard, it was all hack-and-slash until one side or the other gained the advantage.

And fight he would. The thought of death was less fearsome than slavery.

“All livin’ things die,” Niadh agreed. “Rest now, laddie. I canna see them catchin’ us afore dawn.”

Trystan’s mind returned to his body. He swore he’d just closed his eyes when a horn sounded from up on deck. The effect on the men was instantaneous, as if struck by a backlash from distant lightning. They poured up the companionway stairs and through the open hatchway onto the deck, snatched leather breastplates and bronze and leather helmets from where they’d been stashed at the bow, guarded by the peacock figurehead. Trystan grabbed his own dragon-scale hauberk, but disdained a helmet. He preferred clear vision in a fight, trusting his own enhanced speed to duck a head blow. Most of the men took up shields and weapons—bows and arrows, hatchets and knives. Reed alone wore chainmail and carried a sword. There’d be no mistaking who was the captain when the pirates boarded. Mick, the boson, had a broadaxe and a mace that would have done any riever proud. Trystan was the sole spear-wielder.

Just a few men remained working as sailors, taking positions at the rudders or sheets to keep the Sunrisen on her course toward the safety of Lighthaven. The rest donned the garb of temporary soldiers.

Trystan watched Giles, armed with bow and arrows, scramble up to the crow’s nest. He joined Mick at the stern, guarding the armored but unarmed men at the rudders.

The pirate vessel was but a galley-length off the starboard stern. The pirates howled and screamed obscenities at the merchantmen. Mick scowled. “Just like wolves.”

Trystan glared. They sounded naught like the deep, mystical calling of wolves on the hunt. Crows or jackals, mayhaps—all raucous bluster. “Ealga, fly!” he called. “Watch!”

The eagle launched herself into the air, winged over the pursuing galley. The enemy raised drawn bows for a first volley.

“Shields up!” Reed roared.

Trystan thought they could hear the man in the unseen port of Lighthaven.

The merchantmen got their shields up just in time to intercept the rain of arrows. Trystan positioned his over his rudder man, Jan, and himself. Ealga drifted in the galley’s wake, well back of the attack.

“Return fire!” Reed ordered. His archers obeyed. The resulting screams told Trystan the pirates were less skilled at dodging. Not a few were unarmed rowers, poor bastards.

Another rain of arrows dropped from the morning sky. Their shields prevented any injury. Mick grinned. “We’re better armed than most o’ their prey. They’ll find we’re not so easily taken.”

Thinking of little Toby below, Trystan hoped so.

“I’ve got Toby,” Niadh rebuked. “Focus—an’ be careful.”

Through Ealga’s eyes, Trystan saw an oarsman pull at an arrow in his shoulder. One of the pirates, rather than helping the man, stabbed him in the back with his cutlass. Trystan clenched his jaw. If that was the fate of one who’d outlived his usefulness on the other ship, then death ’twas indeed preferable to capture. He braced his legs against the roll of the deck and gripped his spear with his shield-hand, leaving one hand free for throwing knives and axes.

The galley drew alongside and the near rowers shipped their oars as pirates tossed out grappling lines, hooking into the various lines. Now Giles fired, taking down the saboteurs, but there were too many. Trystan noted one enemy archer fire a grapnel at the artemon, saw it tear through the sailcloth. The artemon collapsed, no longer able to hold the wind. Others fired at the mainsail with the same intent, and as the mainsail leaked, softened, the Sunrisen slowed. Without propulsion, the rudders were nigh useless. What good steering when you could not move?

Trystan saw the first net cast. The hooks caught in the bulwark railing, and the first wave of invaders scrambled like rats over the knotted nets. Reed and a group of his men greeted them. The first wave died at their hands, but there were more nets, more pirates. The merchantmen were forced back and battle ensued. Brutal, fast and furious, all hack-and-slash. No quarter asked, nor given. The deck ran red with blood, but no time to grab a bucket. ’Twas for later.

Pirates swarmed aft. Mick threw the first axe, followed by Trystan’s. The first two dropped. Those that followed ran over them. Trystan had time for one more throw, then he grabbed his spear in his free hand and brought the shield to bear. The pirates crashed into it. Trystan bent his knees to absorb the force, one foot sliding behind him to brace. Then he shoved back, using every ounce of converted Badger scrap to throw the enemy clear, far enough for him to thrust with his spear. The skewered man looked shocked as he died, his sword dropping to the deck.

Jan, no longer needed for rudder work, released the tiller and rolled under Trystan’s spear to grab the sword, bringing it up to make short work of another invader. Trystan set into the rhythm of battle——brace, shove, thrust. Ealga plunged from the sky to rake a pirate’s eyes. Trystan cursed. Why couldn’t females—eagle or human—follow a simple order? Stay clear of the fray, where ’twas safe? That her attack was effective wasn’t the point.

“I’m tellin’ yer mother,” Niadh threatened. “Ye think ye’d given up with yer sister, but ye’re a slow learner…e’en for a Badger.”

Trystan didn’t bother to reply. The sounds and smells of battle loomed on the edge of his focus. Blood and sweat, fear and rage, screams and curses. Trystan wondered at the kind of man willing to die for mere possessions, driven to risk death to steal what was not his, who’d rather die on the point of a spear than earn his own way. ’Twas like fighting rievers, men without honor or decency. They didn’t just seek to steal the Sunrisen from her men, but from the families. The women and children waited back home for their men to return, with money enough to afford them a life. Stealing from them was out of the question.

Sweat ran down into his eyes, but he could not spare the moment to brush it away. He shook his head. His hair stuck to his forehead. His shield grew heavy. His gaze swept the deck. One of the Sunrisen crew slipped and went down, just behind Reed. The captain battled the leader of the invaders. The corsair swung at Reed’s face and the Sunrisen’s leader jerked backward to stumble over his own man. Trystan reacted by instinct alone, flinging his shield at the corsair captain. The edge of the bronze disc caught him beneath the chin. Trystan dropped his spear, pulled out two axes and waded into the fray. He fought his way to Reed.

“My thanks!” the man shouted above the din.

Trystan thought with the loss of their leader the pirates would retreat. He’d not figured their savagery would increase. They fought like men possessed by demons, like there was no going back. Trystan found himself the target for their revenge. An arrow bounced off his hauberk, the dragonscale too slick and tight for penetration by so small a weapon. A corsair swung his sword at his unprotected head. He ducked, blocked the blow with his axe and returned a strike of his own. Reed tried to protect his back, but the enemy surrounded them.

Another man, beady-eyed and feral, attacked with a cutlass. Trystan spun to parry and one of the other corsairs dropped under his reach, slamming an enormous studded morning-star into the back of his left thigh.

Ealga screamed for him as Trystan’s leg collapsed and he fell to the blood-soaked deck. Reed and Mick cleared away the attackers. Trystan’s whole world shrank down to simple pain. Burning pain, like demon-acid, the kind that peeled the mind away and left the nerve exposed. A pain that left room for naught else.

Niadh seized his mind, clouded it and placed himself between Trystan and the agony enough for Trystan to regain himself. “Focus!” he snarled. “Pain’s our friend. Tells us we’re no’ dead yet.”

Trystan took a deep shuddering breath and clenched his jaw. He struggled to clear his mind, to rise above his body so he could assess the damage. He turned his head to see and wished he hadn’t. His leg looked like he’d been used to bait bears. The blow missed the main blood vessels, but the bone shattered. Splintered shards buried themselves into the torn flesh and mangled layers of muscle. Dimly aware of Ealga raking the battleground, no longer able to control her, Trystan struggled against the overwhelming urge to shift, to turn. His superstitious newfound friends might kill him themselves. Although he could shift anytime, he depended on the power of the full moon for healing and rejuvenation. The new moon was growing, but its powers were negligible as yet. He dared not shift, and dared not wait.

“I can heal.” He echoed Niadh’s earlier words. “Slow, like any other creature.”

At least until the full of the moon.

The corsairs were annihilated to the last man. The Sunrisen had no brig for prisoners. Reed ordered their bodies tossed overboard, then sent men across to the corsair vessel to rescue the oarsmen and salvage food, drink and what cargo they could. Mick and Jan carried Trystan to Doc. The man splinted the leg and poured relag tea into the wound. “I’ll not lie t’ ye, lad.” His voice carried over the groans of the other fallen. “If the wound sours, ye’ll lose the leg.”

“Nay,” Trystan rasped. “Leave the wound unsewn an’ bound with relag an’ waxroot. I’m a fast healer. I just need time, an’ rest.”

Doc frowned, but packed the wound with shaved waxroot and wrapped the leg in bandages soaked in relag tea. “I’ve dreamwine. Ye might wish for a drop or two.”

Trystan shook his head. He didn’t dare. Dreamwine was a potent painkiller but left the patient softheaded. If his mind weakened instinct would take the upper hand and he’d shift to heal, against the moon and his better judgment. “I could use a drop o’ drenieval whiskey.”

“Ye’re in luck,” Giles said from the doorway. “Guess what the corsair cap’n had stashed in his cabin? Greedy bastard. Better used on the hero o’ the day, I say, an’ as luck would have it, the cap’n agrees.” He handed Doc a cup, and Trystan caught the sharp, fiery scent of home as Doc raised him up and held the cup to his lips. It flowed through him like molten lava from Mt. Aege, seared away the pain and distant numbness.

“All the comforts o’ home,” Trystan joked. “I’ll be fine, ye’ll see. I’m a tough old bastard, too mean t’ die. Ask anyone.” He lay back and closed his eyes.

Time passed in disjointed shifts. Despite the Arcadian medicines, his nose told him first the leg soured. Doc gave him the bad news as he shivered in his improvised bed on the table. “Ye’ve caught a fever, lad. The poison’s spreadin’. I want t’ try something else. A Rhattany remedy that sometimes works.” He crumbled up moldy bread, wrapped it in relag-soaked linen and applied it to the wound.

“Bread crumbs?” Trystan lifted an eyebrow as he drank down a bitter concoction of willow bark and rose hips.

Doc shook his head. “’Tis no’ the bread, but the mold. Don’t ask me why, but mold sometimes helps a bad wound. I’ve made a broth with rondane root an’ seaweed. Don’t ye curl yer lip at me. Ye need t’ keep up yer strength.”

“Hold on,” Niadh urged. “Ye must wait.”

Trystan tried, through rounds of medicines and liquid food, passed from burning hot to freezing cold and back again. Ever the moon loomed larger in the night sky. The pull of it under his skin was unbearable, irresistible. He stretched out his hands, to see the ripple of bone, the first shimmer of fur. He fought to hold on to the human, when everything within screamed to turn, to heal. Niadh helped as much as he could, but ultimately the battle was Trystan’s. Never had he thought the hardest battle would be against himself.

Doc shook him awake. “Best t’ take the leg off, above the wound. Clean flesh can heal. Otherwise, ’tis poisoning yer whole body, an’ we may yet lose ye altogether.”

“Nay!” Trystan shook with cold, with fever, but his mind was clear enough to comprehend. He just needed two more nights. He could hold on for two more nights, no matter how much the beast within snarled.

“There’s a storm brewin’,” Doc argued. “If we don’t do it now, we won’t be able t’ do it later. I’m good, lad, but even I can’t do surgery when the room’s tossin’ me one way an’ my patient the other, an’ all my instruments’re slidin’ off the table onto the deck.”

“I said nay. Giles says we’re almost t’ Lighthaven. If I’m t’ die, I’ll do it on dry land, an’ in one piece.” Trystan set his jaw. “Have ye maggots?”

“We have.” Doc frowned.

“Might work t’ clean the wound, no’?”

“Barbaric thought, but aye, they would. All right, lad. We’ve naught t’ lose at this point.”

Trystan barely noticed the man’s return. His jaw shifted, his fangs lengthened. Niadh nudged his hand. His hand. Not paw, hand. Trystan focused. Hand. Man. Human. Two more nights. He could hold that long. Shift in the pouring light of the full moon, heal, and shift back. He was strong, Badger-strong. Wolves had naught on the stubbornness of Badgers. He could wait.

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